The Impossible Dream: Education and the Search for Panaceas(4 History of Schools and Schooling)

The history of American schooling is replete with evidence of the American proclivity to seek the panacea. The American education landscape is dotted with educational reformers, who in their zeal proclaimed that the sure-fire remedy they were proposing was a cinch to completely solve a given challenge or problem. Their proposed magic elixir, advanced with total confidence, would take effect after the time of its implementation and would bring paradise in at least part of the educational world. Indigenous to this position is educators' steadfast unwillingness to learn from the wisdom of the accumulated past resulting in a never-ending parade of reforms. Though these reforms are often worthwhile in themselves - with some of more worth than others, they share the same fate and suffer a similar unhappy ending, only to see the process born again and begun anew.

About the Author :
The Author: Formerly of Virginia Tech, Thomas C. Hunt joined the Faculty of The University of Dayton in 1996. A historian of American education, with a strong emphasis on religion and education (particularly Catholic schools), Dr. Hunt has authored and/or edited 10 books on religion and education in the last 20 years. He earned his Ph.D. in 1971 in Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Review :
Thomas C. Hunt has succeeded admirably in tracing the development of American education from its early stages in the common school movement up to and including school-to-work programs. The product of meticulous scholarship, his book treats such crucial topics as: the controversies that rose in the nineteenth century over religion and education; the growth of industrial schools for African Americans in the post Civil War era; and the varieties of educational ideologies that emerged as a response to industrialization and other social forces. Students and readers generally will appreciate Dr. Hunt's clear and balanced expositions of the main currents in the history of American education. (Herbert M. Kliebard, Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin-Madison) Dr. Hunt's book chronicles how politicians and education entrepreneurs vending panaceas to a gullible public repeatedly victimize an ahistorical nation bent on instant progress. I highly recommend it. (Jim Garrison, Professor, Virginia Tech) Educators find themselves in a precarious position. They expect new ideas but they fail to fully understand past answers. The void of historical knowledge is filled quite nicely by this book. His goal is to inform and by informing Hunt provides the knowledge readers need to contextualize their 'innovative' ideas. (Thomas J. Lasley II, Dean, School of Education and Allied Professions, University of Dayton)